More legal headaches may lie ahead for Microsoft

November 8 2002

Microsoft may have triumphed in its battles with the Department of Justice, but a suit it faces during the coming spring could still create big headaches for the software giant.

Eolas Technologies, a small company in Chicago, has an ongoing suit against Microsoft, which it sued in 1999 for infringement of its patent on fundamental Web browser technology that makes plug-ins and applets possible.

Eolas's suit claims Microsoft's various web-enabled operating system and application products infringed on United States Patent 5,838,906.

The patent was granted in 1998 for creation of the first browser system that, for example, allowed the embedding of plug-ins, applets, scriptlets or ActiveX Controls, in Web documents.

Dr Michael Doyle, founder of Eolas, was quoted yesterday by the well-known tech journalist Robert X. Cringely as saying that everyone was looking at the case from Microsoft's point of view - that it was possible to settle outside court by paying Eolas - rather than his firm's point of view.
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Dr Doyle asked whether, theoretically, there was any other better option for Eolas than going to trial. He said that considering the facts in the case and the magnitude of the stakes involved, it was extremely likely that the case would go to trial and that a jury would award Eolas both damages and an injunction.

Patent rights give the holder the power to exclude and Dr Doyle raised this possibility with Cringely, asking what would happen if Eolas refused to give Microsoft use of its patented technology.

Dr Doyle said that his company would then have the power needed 'to re-establish the browser-as-application-platform as a viable competitor to Windows."